Please dont run obfuscation over the code!

[Deathawaits4]

Hello dear developers,

i am very hyped for the game, but for every upcoming game i am very interested in, i have a few fears.
I have already asked about something simmilar a while back, but the game was in early stages and now that the game is nearing release, i hope i can throw away some of my fears.

Some game studios have a fear of getting their code stolen, espacially if working with c# engines. Reason is most likely, that the code can be read if not intentionally obfuscated. History shows, that this is a very irrational fear and many huge games (and small games) do not obfuscate their code. One example is Mount and blade 2 bannerlord or nearly any unity game out there. This allows for modders to actually add their own mod support and modding tools to a game, which give a way stronger and healthier modding community.

I myself am a very experienced c# coder/modder and would love to dig into binary modding (even if unsupported by the devs) and create my own tools and so on.

I hope you guys dont intentionally obfuscate your code. I can fully understand not officialy supporting core modding, but please dont smash it right from the start!

i hope my pledge reaches open ears.

[Erik Rutins]

I'll discuss this with Elliot, but as far as I know right now, he's quite protective of his code so I expect it would be obfuscated. I've seen a few other requests for "harmony" modding which is a similar thing. We may not have time to fully research this before release, but I promise we'll listen and consider the possibilities.

Regard,

- Erik

[zgrssd]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

I'll discuss this with Elliot, but as far as I know right now, he's quite protective of his code so I expect it would be obfuscated. I've seen a few other requests for "harmony" modding which is a similar thing. We may not have time to fully research this before release, but I promise we'll listen and consider the possibilities.

Regard,

- Erik

At the end of the day, all that Obfuscation does it make things harder to read after the inevitable decompliation.
As long as code can be executed on a CPU, it can be decompiled. That is the ultimate limit on obfuscation.

But at the end of the day, it is Elliots choice. And we can not realy fault him for wanting to keep his child in his care.

[Deathawaits4]

ORIGINAL: Erik Rutins

I'll discuss this with Elliot, but as far as I know right now, he's quite protective of his code so I expect it would be obfuscated. I've seen a few other requests for "harmony" modding which is a similar thing. We may not have time to fully research this before release, but I promise we'll listen and consider the possibilities.

Regard,

- Erik

Thanks for your reply! Harmony is just the tool to inject code into existing functions without changing the base functions and cleanly overwriting existing functions at runtime.
I guess every company is protective of their code and obfuscation does not really do the trick in this regard. There have been recent leaks of the whole FIFA engine that has been sold by hackers.. and to say the least no one was interested in buying it. Even after the hackers have released the code to download for free, no one downloaded it. There have been no cases of c# games, that were unobfuscated, where any code has been stolen. There are lots of huge games, that allow core modding, that never had any issues of code beeing stolen or used other than modding.

I hope we can get Elliot to rethink his stance on this topic, but i also understand if not. In the end its the developers choice of what he thinks is right.

[Pocus]

Obfuscation would only be necessary if there was an example of a game code stolen then rebranded as a new game sold somewhere. I know of no such case. The others possibilities being modders doing their things with the code, like for example Rimworld. The code is not obfuscated and some advanced mods, equivalent in content to whole DLCs are made thanks to that.

[Slish]

ORIGINAL: Pocus

Obfuscation would only be necessary if there was an example of a game code stolen then rebranded as a new game sold somewhere. I know of no such case. The others possibilities being modders doing their things with the code, like for example Rimworld. The code is not obfuscated and some advanced mods, equivalent in content to whole DLCs are made thanks to that.

I believe Myth of Empires was accused of this? They stole code, and even got taken down on Steam?

[zgrssd]

ORIGINAL: Slish

ORIGINAL: Pocus

Obfuscation would only be necessary if there was an example of a game code stolen then rebranded as a new game sold somewhere. I know of no such case. The others possibilities being modders doing their things with the code, like for example Rimworld. The code is not obfuscated and some advanced mods, equivalent in content to whole DLCs are made thanks to that.

I believe Myth of Empires was accused of this? They stole code, and even got taken down on Steam?

But that was not decompliation.
IIRC they actually handeled/made the code to order, to fix the original issue Ark had.

Plus my last info is it avoided being taken down?
Edit: Nevermind. They are off Steam, but just sell it on their own now.

[Slish]

ORIGINAL: zgrssd

ORIGINAL: Slish

ORIGINAL: Pocus

Obfuscation would only be necessary if there was an example of a game code stolen then rebranded as a new game sold somewhere. I know of no such case. The others possibilities being modders doing their things with the code, like for example Rimworld. The code is not obfuscated and some advanced mods, equivalent in content to whole DLCs are made thanks to that.

I believe Myth of Empires was accused of this? They stole code, and even got taken down on Steam?

But that was not decompliation.
IIRC they actually handeled/made the code to order, to fix the original issue Ark had.

Plus my last info is it avoided being taken down?
Edit: Nevermind. They are off Steam, but just sell it on their own now.

Ok, I don't know all the details. Your post just reminded me of Myth of Empires. It is really taken down on Steam still. They are pursuing a court case though to get it back on Steam I believe.

[zgrssd]

ORIGINAL: Slish

ORIGINAL: zgrssd

ORIGINAL: Slish




I believe Myth of Empires was accused of this? They stole code, and even got taken down on Steam?

But that was not decompliation.
IIRC they actually handeled/made the code to order, to fix the original issue Ark had.

Plus my last info is it avoided being taken down?
Edit: Nevermind. They are off Steam, but just sell it on their own now.

Ok, I don't know all the details. Your post just reminded me of Myth of Empires. It is really taken down on Steam still. They are pursuing a court case though to get it back on Steam I believe.

So I read up on it again:
Wildcard Games made Ark.
A Ex-Member of Wildcard - with access to the sourcecode - founded Snail games.
Snail games brought out Myth of Empires.
That is how they got suspicious.
A comparision of the code showed supposedly hundreds of similarities.

[makotech222]

I'm a modder and I'd like to express immense support for allowing us to Harmony mod the game. So many great games benefit from this process: Rimworld, Oxygen Not Included, etc, where modding greatly expands what the game is capable of and benefits everyone. I've never seen any game that gets decompiled that goes on to being stolen by someone else and sold.

[xan2622]

I second Deathawaits4's request and makotech222's comment.
Please don't restrict modding. [&o]

Game mods allow players to extend the fun that a game offers, in so many different and exiting ways. It is just awesome to be able to customize the UI, 3D units, textures but also some game mechanics.

Please please, consider allowing modders to fully express their creativity (which, in the end, will make your players (your customers) happier and make them thankful to you for letting them download all these very various mods).

[Pocus]

It can be analyzed as a risk vs reward decision. Are risks high or low? What about rewards?

As a sidenote, I'm programming in Slitherine's Archon language, which is basically "scripts in plain sight". UI, AI, gameplay is 100% exposed in plain texts files, and pretty understandable as I comment a lot (my goldfish memory thanks me a lot about that, well it would if it remembered it should thanks my other self [:D] ).

If theft was even an uncommon occurrence and not something nearing non-existence, then I guess all the games done in Archon would be prime candidates. For example Battle Academy I, II, III, Field of Glory from Richard Bodley Scott and several others games, including mine (Empires and then <redacted>) . I have never heard anything about that.

[zgrssd]

Please restrict modding to the minimum.

I think you got a flip in that sentence, as it says the opposit of the rest of your post.

[zgrssd]

As a sidenote, I'm programming in Slitherine's Archon language, which is basically "scripts in plain sight". UI, AI, gameplay is 100% exposed in plain texts files, and pretty understandable as I comment a lot (my goldfish memory thanks me a lot about that, well it would if it remembered it should thanks my other self ).

If theft was even an uncommon occurrence and not something nearing non-existence, then I guess all the games done in Archon would be prime candidates. For example Battle Academy I, II, III, Field of Glory from Richard Bodley Scott and several others games, including mine (Empires and then <redacted>) . I have never heard anything about that.

This is unfortunately a poor example.
This is a interpreted langauge. And I am betting the Interpreter itself require licensing for commercial use.

Without the Interpreter, your Source Code is not more usefull for gaming then grandmothers cooking recipes.
And Slitherine propably has a way to get other games thrown out for blatant sourcecode theft. Similar to how you can get games thrown off Steam.

[xan2622]

ORIGINAL: zgrssd

Please restrict modding to the minimum.

I think you got a flip in that sentence, as it says the opposit of the rest of your post.

Oops, thank you for correcting me.
I indeed meant "please don't restrict modding (too much)".

[Jorgen_CAB]

Open games like Rimworld are clear examples of how a strong modding community can carry what is a relatively simple game to greatness.

I doubt that anyone would steal the code to try and create a similar game and then sell it, that would be really difficult to get away with and the example of that happening are so rare to the examples of great modding communities have lifted the sales and popularity of games.

Ultimately it is the creators right to do as they wish and I would respect and support that, even if I don't agree with their decisions.

[Pocus]

ORIGINAL: zgrssd

As a sidenote, I'm programming in Slitherine's Archon language, which is basically "scripts in plain sight". UI, AI, gameplay is 100% exposed in plain texts files, and pretty understandable as I comment a lot (my goldfish memory thanks me a lot about that, well it would if it remembered it should thanks my other self ).

If theft was even an uncommon occurrence and not something nearing non-existence, then I guess all the games done in Archon would be prime candidates. For example Battle Academy I, II, III, Field of Glory from Richard Bodley Scott and several others games, including mine (Empires and then <redacted>) . I have never heard anything about that.

This is unfortunately a poor example.
This is a interpreted langauge. And I am betting the Interpreter itself require licensing for commercial use.

Without the Interpreter, your Source Code is not more usefull for gaming then grandmothers cooking recipes.
And Slitherine propably has a way to get other games thrown out for blatant sourcecode theft. Similar to how you can get games thrown off Steam.

I beg to differ. You do need the interpreter obviously, but you don't need to understand anything of it. You only need to use the interpreted code to do whatever you want. This has never been done, and it's much easier to understand and edit it than working with an executable, even if not obfuscated.
If people were interested into stealing others people code, then a game done in Archon would be a prime candidate for that. Admittedly, they have less coverage and diffusion than Rimworld though.

[zgrssd]

I beg to differ. You do need the interpreter obviously, but you don't need to understand anything of it. You only need to use the interpreted code to do whatever you want. This has never been done, and it's much easier to understand and edit it than working with an executable, even if not obfuscated.

You think a interpeter is a new concept?
Batchfiles
python
PHP

If you include interpreted langauges that get compiled into a intermediate format, you can add such uncommon stuff as:
Java and .NET

If people were interested into stealing others people code, then a game done in Archon would be a prime candidate for that.

It would also be easier to proove code theft then anywhere else.
And Archon - like any approach like it before and after - certainly has limits too.

[Deathawaits4]

I am glad that my plege is getting so much support.
Code theft is near non existant. Something that happens on a regular basis is the theft of 3d/2d art by single entities trying to make some quick buck on 3d platforms, but decompiling 3d art is very easy anyway.

I really hope that this gets even more tractions to show how much we actually want this!

Thanks guys.

[Bleek]

From the perspective of someone who doesn't mod, I really appreciate mods.

Elliot is a lone coder, and does an exceptional job. But he's still just one man and his keyboard.

Modding recruits a 'team' that expands exponentially and so the output of content. This attracts more players (buyers) and increases retention (play time). They're win-win in that respect.

For example, I wouldn't play DWU without some of the mods such as Bacon, expanded races and some of the ships and UI mods.

I'm really excited to see what modders bring to DW2, because it deserves the attention!